Jürgen Klopp has said he would scrap video assistant referees for the simple reason that Professional Game Match Officials Ltd is “not able to use it properly”.
The Liverpool manager gave a damning assessment of the the referees’ body at his final pre-match press conference, when asked whether he would vote to keep or scrap VAR at next month’s Premier League annual general meeting. Liverpool are understood to be in favour of retaining VAR but their outgoing manager has a differing view owing to how it has been implemented in the Premier League.
“I don’t think they are voting against VAR,” he said. “I think they are voting against how VAR gets used because that is definitely not right. In the way they do it, I would vote against it because these people are not able to use it properly. I don’t think VAR is the problem but the way they use it is the problem. You cannot change the people obviously, that is clear, so I would say I would vote for scrapping VAR.”
Liverpool were on the receiving end of this season’s biggest VAR controversy when having a legitimate goal disallowed in September’s 2-1 defeat at Tottenham. Klopp believes his final opponents, Wolves, who submitted the resolution calling for VAR to be abolished, are more deserving of sympathy having suffered from several bad calls.
Klopp said: “They are the most unlucky team I ever saw with VAR decisions. They were crazy against Wolves. We had a few strange ones but they are the champions of that. Unbelievable. They will be strong [on Sunday] and they want to finish on a high. We will prepare as strongly as possible.
“I was never the part that disturbed a good game before, but this time I will probably be the one. Standing there and pretending it will be a completely normal game, no one would believe me. It is a challenge for different reasons and I hope we can all put a really good performance on the pitch. It is much easier to celebrate afterwards if you saw a good game before.”
Klopp admits it will be “tough” to manage at Anfield for the final time, and he may be unable to deliver the pre-match team talk. He has declined a request from the film crew documenting his final season to record his pre-Wolves speech.